The Drowned Vault by N. D. Wilson Page B

soon?” Cyrus asked. His stomach roared at him as he slid out of his chair and onto his knees.
    “No chance,” Arachne said. “Not for a while. You need an empty stomach for this. Now flatten out on your face, arms at your sides, hands palms up.”
    Cyrus eased himself down. The rough wool rug scratched at his forehead and nose.
    “What are we doing?” he asked. “What’s the point?”
    Arachne’s cool hands closed around his right ankle. “Deep breath in,” she said, and a second later, Cyrus’s leg folded up into the small of his back. His toes splayed, his tendons screamed, and his mouth opened, but he couldn’t even yell. His tongue clawed at the dirty rug, and in some other world, he could hear his sister laughing.
    “Exhale,” Arachne said, and electric ice shot through Cyrus’s leg and rattled through his body. Pain and tension disappeared as he felt his leg bend farther and farther up into his back.
    “What are you doing?” he heard Antigone ask. “You’re going to break him! Cy, are you okay?”
    Arachne pried Cyrus’s other leg up into his back. Hisface compressed into the rug, and an involuntary groan slid out of him as his lungs collapsed.
    “I’m a weaver,” Arachne said, and her voice was cheerful. She was enjoying herself. “To some, I am
the
weaver—the first and true spinster. And the human body is—like many things—woven. Rupert has asked me to rework and rearrange a few things in the two of you.”
    “y?” Cyrus licked the rug as he tried to speak. His teeth would have chattered if there weren’t floor wedged in between them. The cold electrical current in his body was growing stronger. Even his eyelids were beginning to twitch.
    “You could achieve this flexibility on your own over years—with the right training, of course. But Rupert cannot wait for years, and I am here now. He asks, and I comply. This will greatly improve your recovery after strain.” Cyrus’s legs dropped to the floor as limp as two sacks of liquid. Then his arms crossed behind his back.
    “Oh, gosh …,” Antigone blurted.
    Arachne continued talking, but Cyrus’s brain was drifting away.
    “Some muscle fibers will not change or be rewoven without dramatic assistance. Yours are strong already, but they need more endurance and more quickness. That means, well, you might call it braiding rather than weaving.”
    Cyrus’s arms flopped back out to his sides.
    “Lie down, Antigone. You’ll catch up in a minute. Cyrus, this part is … uncomfortable,” Arachne said. Her hand slid up to the back of Cyrus’s head. “If you were awake, it would mean hours of prolonged cramping followed by the most intense itching and tickling you’ve ever felt. Like stinging ants beneath the skin.” Cyrus tried to sputter an objection, but Arachne held his head still. “Which is why you’ll be uncon—”
    Darkness landed on Cyrus like a pile of quilts.
    He looked around. There was nothing. No floor beneath him. No
him
to have a floor beneath. He’d been kicked out of his body and into … nowhere.
    “Cyrus?” The voice was low and surprised and a little worried. It was a woman’s voice, sweet and mellow, grown in tropical sun and tropical soil. It plucked thick unused strings in Cyrus’s soul, playing a chord he’d forgotten. Shocked emotion roared through him.
    “Mom?” He couldn’t look for her. He couldn’t search. He could only listen. Hours passed. Or years. And still he waited in the nowhere silence for his mother’s voice.
    “You should not be here, Cyrus. The sleep is long here. Go back. Stay with your sister.”
    “Mom?” Antigone’s voice was louder, closer than their mother’s. But Cyrus couldn’t see her, either.
    “Antigone? Take your brother and go. Before you are lost in the in-between.”
    “Mom, I want to see you,” Antigone said. “Where are you?”
    “You do see me,” she said. “You braid my hair. You sit with me and sing to me and read to me. I listen and I feel.